Sky Full Of Stars
by lellabeth
Summary: Wounded by life and war, Garrett's looking for solace in the arms of someone who'll help him make sense of the world he's returned to. Edward's been living on the fringes for years, but the scarred man he meets makes him want to step back into the open. Daddy-kink.
1. Chapter 1

**Hi. Long time, no see. This is just something for sophiacorgi's birthday in a couple of days. It's not beta'd and I don't have pre-readers. I'm flying solo with this one, so all mistakes are my own. Banner's on my profile!**

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He sucks his thumb like he's sucking a cock.

In and out, tongue lapping, cheeks hollowed. It's arousing and so fucking vulgar, obscene even, the way his mouth wraps around it. On a couple of passes he's sucked so hard that the whole of the thumb has disappeared inside, those full pink lips pressing against the fold of skin where it meets his hand. The knuckle in the middle catches against his teeth when he drags it back out, just a little flash of white that sparks images of them scraping over the head of a cock.

Edward would think it's overkill if the guy wasn't keeping his eyes down and trained on the bar he sits at, only flickering a glance at men who inevitably pass him by. With each one who ignores him, his shoulders slump a little more, the thumb being sucked deeper and deeper into his mouth. He rests on elbow on the bar, not looking at anyone, not wanting to see anyone not looking at him.

But Edward's looking. Has been for a while.

He's different, this man at the bar. No preening or trying to show himself off, just sits silently like his stool is an island in the middle of the sea, accepting rejection as if he'd been waiting for it. His outfit isn't anything special, either - a dark gray v-neck and black jeans. There's a hint of inked darkness just under the sleeve straining around his bicep, a glimpse of darkness of another kind written all over his face. He's all brawny and brooding, bearded jaw and broad shoulders. Every time he moves, the dim lights seem to caress his big body. There's some kind of poetry in the way his muscles flow and ebb like water flowing downstream with every slight shift on his stool.

It's obvious why the guy's alone. Tonight's a special event at the club, meant to bring together Daddies and littles. Daddies want someone small, someone they feel they can protect and care for. This man is tall and built, but his manner makes it obvious he's not interested in being someone's Daddy. He sucks his thumb like he has to, like it's his only comfort in the whole world. So men see him, see his beautiful face and that body, and they're interested until they realize he's not looking to be the one in charge.

He's looking to be taken charge of.

That suits Edward just fine. He's maybe an inch or two taller than this guy, though he's nowhere near as built. But he isn't intimidated by the other man's bulk, because the look on his face is all sad and lost, hoping desperately for someone to want him.

And Edward does.

So he tips his drink back and finishes it, smacking the glass on the table once he's done. He deliberately avoids the gaze of a few young boys who've been eyeing him all night, not interested in anything but the shy, lonely man sucking his thumb.

He shoulders through the crowd and makes his way to the bar.


	2. Chapter 2

There's nothing more than a brush of their shoulders as Edward steps up to the bar, but every inch of his body burns at the contact. He sees the guy's head snap up to glance at him, his eyes wide, that thumb still in his mouth. Edward pretends he doesn't notice his attention, leaning forward with his arms on the bar. He has to give the other man credit - he tries to be subtle as he checks Edward out, glancing over his tight black denim and tighter shirt of the same midnight shade. Edward knows he's slender, verging on slight in places, but he also plays enough sport to fill out his frame with lean muscle.

It's rare for him to approach anyone. Usually they come to him, whether at parties like this or just out at a regular bar, and he decides whether he's desperate enough to want their company. Deep down, he's always desperate, but not for them. For something _more_, for a connection that ties him down to the earth and stops him spinning out like a wayward satellite.

The guy isn't looking at him anymore, not overtly at least. Edward can feel his stare though, can almost taste his longing.

It matches his own.

He looks to his left, lets his eyes run slowly over the figure next to him. It's just as big as Edward thought, maybe even broader up close. He can see tight, hard chest muscle pressing against the fabric of the man's shirt, the very slight hint of a softer belly underneath. There are veins in the man's thick forearms that he wants to trace with his tongue, follow them all the way up the bicep and underneath the soft cotton of a sleeve.

The man next to him shifts even more uncomfortably than he did before, that thumb so far into his mouth Edward can't see it anymore.

"I'm Edward," he says, because that display of the other man's discomfort makes something inside him need to soothe.

"Gnngg," the other man responds, maybe forgetting the thumb's in his mouth. Edward likes that, proof it's not a ploy meant to entice. He watches as the other man pulls his hand hastily away from his mouth, expression pained and cheeks pink. "Garrett."

"Hi, Garrett." He licks his lips, wishing he was licking Garrett's swollen ones instead. "Did you like what you saw?"

He watches the big man in front of him blush harder, fidgeting again, and he thinks teasing Garrett might be his new favorite thing.

"I… sorry, I…" Garrett flails his hands in front of him like he can capture words from the air. "I didn't mean to offend you."

Edward reaches an arm out and grabs hold of Garrett's fist before it can slam into the almost-full glass beside him. He rubs his thumb over the man's pulse point, feeling the rapid beat against his skin. "Relax."

He's gratified when he feels that pulse settle slowly, his thumb stroking over the soft skin of Garrett's wrist.

"Sorry," Garrett says again, eyes back on the bar. "I don't really know how to talk to—" He laughs, gritty and bitter. "I don't know how to talk, I guess."

"You don't have to talk," Edward says softly. "I can just look again, if you want."

Garrett grips onto his wrist with the hand still in Edward's grasp, his expression twisted. He won't meet Edward's stare, so Edward scans back over the man's torso, down to strong thighs.

Garrett's hand on his wrist tightens unbearably, clamping down like a shackle. "Edward, I should tell you—"

But Edward doesn't hear any more. His breath is chased from his lungs by the sharp sting of Garrett's nails digging into his skin like little shards of glass.

And the sight of Garrett's leg, resting on the bar stool ledge, and the empty, baggy fall of denim on the side where his other leg should be.

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**So... thoughts?**


	3. Chapter 3

Edward isn't sure how long he stares, shock leaving him immobile, but it's long enough for Garrett's hand to slowly slip away from him. He swallows, trying to dissolve the lump of words trapped in his throat. All of them feel wrong – too much like he's trying to overcompensate for being disgusted, and that couldn't be further from the truth. Disgust isn't what he's feeling, not even close. It isn't pity, either.

It's deep, dark sadness, so heavy it feels like a weight across his shoulders. No wonder Garrett's are so broad, having to carry that sadness every day.

His attention is finally broken by Garrett whirling around on the stool, hiding his empty pant leg from sight. He's breathing heavily and fumbling, picking up metal crutches Edward hadn't noticed before now. There are raspy, painful-sounding noises coming from Garrett's throat. They're small, strangled, like he's trying to hold them back but failing. Edward can only watch as Garrett's tremble hands grapple with the silver sticks meant to make up for his missing leg.

Garrett finally molds his hand to the cushioned leather handrest halfway down the crutches, planting them on the floor as he hauls himself up from the stool. Again those muscles are shifting shadows on pale skin, not even the club lights able to resist touching Garrett's body. Edward knows he should say something but he's been silent too long now, too quiet when he should have been reassuring. So he can only watch in horror as the plastic cap on the bottom of one of Garrett's crutches slides across a wet puddle on the floor, Garrett's body lurching with it.

He watches as the other man tries to find his balance, tensing his body awkwardly to stop himself falling. It's ungainly and uncomfortable and Edward desperately wants to look away, but he can't. It feels wrong to do so, as if he's betraying Garrett by finding his disability discomforting.

Garrett's head drops as he pulls himself upright, his chin resting on his chest. Edward knows it's impossible to see well in the club, but for a second he swears he watches those broad shoulders shake.

He can't breathe.

His hand creeps out of its own volition, coming to rest on Garrett's shoulder. A second, endless and aching, and then another tremor.

Edward's moves to stand in front of the big, broken man. When Garrett keeps his head down as if he's ashamed, Edward feels like he's in pieces.

"It's okay," he tells Garrett, his hand coming up to wrap around the other man's neck. "It's okay."

"It's not." That voice, so twisted and hurt. "Nothing's _fucking_ okay."

When Edward's arms wrap around the Garrett's waist, pulling their bodies together, it takes a second before he feels Garrett surrender. Then he melts into Edward, hands fisting in his shirt.

In the middle of the dark club, kissing and grinding couples all around them, they hold one another.

After a life of always feeling like there's something wrong with him, like the misshapen piece of a puzzle, Edward doesn't think he's ever felt anything so right.


	4. Chapter 4

It shouldn't be possible for Garrett to look better under the overly bright lights of a diner than he did in the dim light of the club, but somehow he does. His dark hair is thick and wavy, messy strands brushing across his stubbled jaw in a way that makes Edward's fingers jealous. His eyes are black-brown and bracketed by long lashes that hit his cheeks when he looks down at the torn vinyl of the table.

He looks down a lot.

Edward likes watching those lashes graze skin in a butterfly kiss, but he wishes Garrett would show him his eyes.

They've been sitting in silence for a while. Edward isn't sure whether he likes it or not. Garrett keeps taking these deep breaths like he's about to speak, but then he seems to swallow the words back down.

Edward hadn't been interested in staying at the club after the unexpected intensity that had passed between them, so he'd asked Garrett if he wanted to get a cup of coffee instead. The way Garrett nodded frantically into his neck made his heart skip. He watched Garrett swing his body along using his crutches as though he weighed nothing. There was a moment of awkwardness as they left the club, Edward desperately wanting to hold the man's hand but unable to do so. Instead he settled for hooking his finger in a belt loop on Garrett's jeans. He'd seen Garrett's eyes flash to him then, all wide and hopeful, and he'd decided to hold on to that little strip of denim for the whole walk.

He'd held the diner door open for Garrett, run his hand up his stooped back as they made their way to a table. There'd been a moment when Garrett had reached for hazelnut creamer and Edward had seen his hand, scarred knuckles and rough skin, and he reached out before he could stop himself. He'd touched Garrett's hand. Just for a second, but he knew he'd remember that electric spark of skin on skin for weeks.

He'd tried to mask it by picking up a packet of Splenda, even though he didn't ever use it. And then of course he'd had to dump it into his cup of coffee.

So there he is, silent and gulping down too-sweet shitty coffee, trying to position his leg to bump Garrett's knee under the table.

Garrett's small, shy smile when he succeeds feels like the best present he's ever received.

"I usually wear a prosthetic," Garrett says, still looking at the slashes across the tabletop.

Edward doesn't know what to say. If he says _good_, will Garrett think he means it's bad now? "You do?"

"Yeah. I can walk without the crutches when I wear it."

"That must make it easier to get around."

"I don't get out much, really."

"No?"

Garrett takes another of those deep breaths. "I just got back from Afghanistan about six months back. Learning to walk with the prosthetic took up most of that time, so I couldn't work."

"And now?"

Garrett looks up finally. "Now I guess I just… go with the current."

"That's not always a bad thing."

"When you've spent years trying every day not to drown, it's a blessing."

When Edward reaches for the other man's hand this time, he doesn't pretend to be getting a packet of Splenda. He just grabs on and wraps his fingers around Garrett's tightly. "Why didn't you wear the prosthetic tonight?"

Garrett brings his other hand up to cup the back of his neck. "I've been out of the lifestyle for a long time. Don't Ask, Don't Tell was nice in theory, but people asked and everyone told, so I had to keep my shit locked down. I couldn't risk that kind of secret getting out, so I just… suppressed it. Withdrew from it."

Edward knows how that feels. God, does he know that. The words are brutally honest, something foreign to them both. Garrett speaks quietly, his hand clenching around Edward's.

"Anyway, I felt like accepting that side of myself would go some way to reclaiming the new me. And the new me wears the prosthetic, but not unless I need to. I didn't want to paint a false image of myself. If I can't face who I am now, how could anyone?"

"That's… fucking brave."

Garret's tone is derisive. "It's not brave if you're shit-scared the whole time."

"It's even more brave then." Edward doesn't mean to sound so fierce, but he doesn't regret it.

"It didn't feel anything but stupid when I was sitting at that bar alone, wishing someone would just fucking talk to me."

"I talked to you."

Garrett's hand slips away from Edward's again, and he's beginning to hate the sensation of the other man's fingertips skimming his. "You didn't know about my leg."

"I do now."

"It might be a problem—"

"It's not."

Those eyes, dark pools of hope, fix on Edward's face. "No?"

"No."

This time, it's Garrett's hand that reaches for his. "You swear? It's not just… it's not pity, right?"

"It's not pity."

Garrett licks his lower lip. "I don't want you to leave me because you can't handle it, Edward."

Edward raises their hands to his mouth, lets his lips soothe scarred skin. "I won't."

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**Thank you so much for all the reviews so far. I know this is outside most people's comfort zones, and I feel blessed you're taking a chance on this little story of mine. **


	5. Chapter 5

**It's sophiacorgi's birthday today! I'd love it if you could wish her a happy birthday in your review.**

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They sit with their hands entwined, chatting about everything and nothing. Garrett is undoubtedly shy and he stammers on some words, but every so often he'll look up to check Edward's listening, as if it's important to him that he's heard.

Edward thinks he could listen to Garrett talk forever.

That rich, deep voice, the peek of tongue on some words, watching his mouth shape around words… everything about Garrett is sexy. Beautiful, even.

"So you know why I was at the club tonight. I guess you were there looking for someone too?" Garrett asks, his fingers playing with Edward's.

"I'm at the club for most of those special mixer nights. I've just never found anyone that caught my attention for more than a first glance. I was holding out for something more. Someone special."

"You've never found them?"

"Not before now."

Garrett's smile is so hopeful, he feels it deep in his chest. "And now?"

"I think you're special," Edward says softly. "I watched you the whole time you were at the bar, sucking that thumb of yours."

"I do it when I get nervous." Garrett's blushing.

"You were nervous because of the crutches?"

"I was nervous because of everything," he replies, laughing. "Because of the crutches and my leg, and because I've been alone so long. Having to stay away from the lifestyle was so hard, especially when it felt like everything around me was falling to pieces. I'd spend months overseas, seeing things no one should ever have to. I just wanted someone I could come home to and lose myself in."

Edward strokes his thumb across Garrett's palm. "You don't have to hide anymore."

"I know, and you have no idea how much of a relief that is. I felt like I was denying a part of myself for years. I've felt that way for my whole life, maybe. Even when I had a partner, it wasn't like I'd imagined."

"No?"

"I'm too fucking tall and heavy. I attract men who want me to take control of them, and I've never been interested in that. I want… to feel small. Like I'm cherished, like I need to be protected. Like someone cares enough to want to protect me. I thought it was wrong, you know? That I was fucked up for wanting that."

"It's not fucked up," Edward replies, voice firm.

"It doesn't feel that way now," Garrett replies, squeezing his hand. "Not with you."

"I want to take care of you, Garrett," he says, and he _does. _More than anything he's ever wanted in his life, he wants to take care of this vulnerable, hurting man.

"I want that too." His voice is hopeful, so fucking desperate.

"So… we're really doing this?"

Their hands are clasped tightly together. "Yeah, we are."

For a minute, Edward just stares at the man before him. That face, so sharp and hard but soft when he smiles. Those shoulders, carrying the weight of the world upon them. "I can't wait to take care of you."

His heart pounds when Garrett ducks his head to hide his smile.

"I'm not into anything hardcore, you should know. No playrooms. When I fuck you, it'll be in my bed. When I spank you, it'll be with my hand. And when you speak, you won't call me sir or Master. I don't play that way."

Garrett's cheeks are flushed, his eyes bright. "But I can call you Daddy, if I want?"

_Christ. _Edward's cock is hard just hearing that word pass Garrett's lips. "You damn well better."


	6. Chapter 6

Their first date is at a Chinese restaurant. Garrett tries to teach Edward how to use chopsticks, and Edward pretends to be terrible at it just to hear him laugh. He laughs a lot that night, smiles even more. Edward isn't naïve enough to think he's instantly fixed all the broken things inside the other man, but he thinks maybe he's helped patch them up just for an hour or two.

He thinks that for now, that's enough.

They don't kiss that night. Edward walks Garrett back to his apartment, their hands swinging between them as they stroll through streets in the summer twilight. Garrett doesn't have his crutches, instead choosing to wear his prosthetic. When Edward sees him outside the park they agreed to meet at, he's hurt – he explained he was fine with the crutches, and Garrett not using them feels like a sign of discomfort or distrust, as if he has to hide.

Edward never wants Garrett to hide from him.

He tells the other man as much as they walk side-by-side. He expects Garrett to tell him it'll take time to trust fully, or maybe just that he feels more confident that way. Instead he's met with blushing cheeks and stammered words, Garrett telling him that he thought this way they could hold hands.

That makes Edward smile so hard, his cheeks ache.

He'd forgotten that was even possible.

So they hold hands on the walk to the restaurant and through most of the dinner, and on the walk back too. Edward can't remember the last time he held someone's hand. To him it'd always seemed like nothing, but the warmth of Garrett's skin against his own feels like craved affection, a sincere connection joining them together.

It feels like everything.

They finally let go when they make it to Garrett's apartment door. Edward trails his pinkie across Garrett's palm as he breaks contact, desperate to keep some tie between them. Before he can turn to leave, he finds himself wrapped up in Garrett's embrace. The rough rasp of his stubble against Edward's neck when he lays his head on his shoulder is enough to make them both shudder and press their bodies closer together. The man fists his hands in Edward's shirt like he wants to hold on forever, but his arms are achingly gentle as they circle Edward's waist.

"Thank you," Garrett whispers, deep and bashful and so sweet. "This is the best day I've had in years."

Edward rests his temple against Garrett's and squeezes the other man's body closer to his. His throat is too tight to speak, so he lets the kiss he presses against Garrett's cheek do his talking.

_Me too._

He steps back a minute later, but he still feels something sparking in his chest and expanding out, filling him up.

It isn't until he reaches his own apartment that he recognizes it.

Happiness.


	7. Chapter 7

**I'm sorry I don't have time to reply to all your reviews, but trust that I read and love each one. Your kindness is so special to me. Thank you for reading.**

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The next date takes place at Edward's house. He tries out some recipe he finds online for a pasta dish, but he can't cut the onions small enough and the garlic makes the whole kitchen stink. So he opens all the windows downstairs before he goes to take his shower, only to find when he gets out that it's started raining. Then he has to close all the windows and wipe water from the window ledges, and after all that's done he's sweating and could do with another shower.

They should've just gone out to eat.

When Garrett finally arrives, Edward's beyond frazzled. He undoes the latch on the door and rushes back into the kitchen, shouting over his shoulder for Garrett to come in. By the time he makes it back to his sauce, it's emitting smoke and the bottom is stuck to the pan.

"Dammit," he says as he tries to scrape burned herbs from the sides of the pot. It's rust-brown and sticky like syrup, nothing like the picture on the recipe. He dips his finger in to taste, somehow forgetting the sauce has been cooking for three hours and is scorching hot.

He rushes over to the sink to rinse the boiling substance off, cursing all the while. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Garrett in the doorway of the kitchen. Edward should be greeting him and getting him a drink, but instead he's ruined everything. The water running from the faucet feels like sharp shards of ice against his raw skin.

"Did you get burned?" Garrett asks.

_Yeah_, Edward thinks, _too many times, and I pray you won't burn me too. _"Yes."

"Keep it under the cold water, okay? I know it hurts."

It really, really does. When Garrett's strong hand wraps around the back of his neck, it's all too much to take. He whimpers, defeated by pasta sauce and too-high expectations.

"Hey, shhh," Garrett says. "It's just…"

"Pasta."

"There, it's just pasta. Nothing important."

But it is, because it was meant to be his and Garrett's perfect second date. Edward's walking on eggshells in steel-toed boots, terrified even the slightest falter will cause everything to crumble.

"I just wanted things to be perfect," he tries to say, but it's garbled by emotion he can't hold back. He's embarrassed and his hand won't stop stinging, and he _knew _this would get screwed up somehow. Deep down, he knows he's being overdramatic. He knows this doesn't matter, not really. Yet with Garrett, it feels like everything matters, because he's so desperate for it all to work.

"It can still be perfect," Garrett replies softly. "Just be you, without any of this panicking over things that don't matter. Just give me you. Then it'll be perfect."

Edward snorts. "Who's supposed to be taking care of who?"

Garrett molds his body to Edward's, pressing his strength into the man in front of him like it can pass through his skin and into his veins. "We can take care of each other, okay? I know this isn't just the pasta. I know there's something you're terrified of, just like I am. I know… you've been hurt. And maybe you don't have scars the same as mine, but you have them, even if they're inside. What I need from you is honesty and affection and a soft place to land. Nothing more than that, no matter what names we like to use. I crave being taken care of, but not at the expense of you shouldering every burden on your own."

He tilts his hips slightly into Edward's, hearing the other man's breath stutter. "Besides, when we finally make it into that situation, I'm sure you'll be taking care of me just fine."

Edward huffs. "When did you get so smart?"

"Probably being around you the other night. You put a heap of shit next to a perfume factory, eventually that shit's going to smell like roses."

"That's… disgusting. And did you just call me a heap of shit?"

"You'd be the perfume factory in this scenario."

"I retract that remark about you being smart, just so you know."

"Says the man crying over pasta."

"It wasn't the pasta."

Garrett squeezes him tight. "I know."

They stand like that for a while. Edward's too exhausted to pretend Garrett's arms aren't an anchor, a comforting weight. He breathes deep and long, shakes off the stupid frustrations of the afternoon. All that matters is the man currently wrapped around Edward's body like a shield.

Garrett feels the tension leech from Edward's muscles, and presses a kiss to his jaw. Intimacy is new to him, but with Edward it feels natural.

It feels right.

"You have any take-out menus?" he whispers in Edward's ear.

The laugh he gets in response makes his heart take flight.

They eat Chinese food, just like the first date, and Edward admits he's a pro with chopsticks. "I just wanted to see you laugh," he tells Garrett, and then he smirks. "And to keep touching me to correct how I was holding them."

It's the perfect example of everything he feels with Edward – an easy brightness, good in a way he's never had before.

So much of his life has been heavy. With Edward, everything's light.

When Edward moves forward midway through his dinner to press a sloppy, quick, endlessly perfect kiss to his lips, Garrett can't remember ever feeling happier. That feeling grows as he helps Edward do the dishes and then they settle in to watch an old movie. He knows it's only their second date but his feelings for Edward are like the rush of a tide, fierce and undeniable.

Later that evening, when Edward folds their fingers together and pulls Garrett to his bedroom, it's not even a question. They get ready for bed in silence, Edward turning his back when Garrett changes into borrowed pajama bottoms. Edward quietly states that he laid out some non-scented body lotion and gauze for Garrett's leg, because he searched the internet for what he'd need to use and then bought the items so Garrett could stay at his house. Edward even helps him make his way back from the bathroom after the prosthetic is off and his nighttime ritual is complete.

Edward isn't just putting up with his disability. He's accepting it.

The respectful tenderness that Edward maintains throughout it all makes that tide of feeling turn into a whole ocean.

Garrett thinks that for once, he can swim rather than drown.

Their bodies meet and melt into one another in the middle of the bed, their lips coming together for long, lazy kisses. Eventually they drift into a dreamworld, but before Garrett can slip fully into sleep, he feels lips pressing against his forehead.

"You're the best dream I've ever had," Edward whispers into the darkness.

For the long hours it takes for the dusk to shift into a golden dawn, Garrett watches Edward sleep. Through it all, he wonders how the beautiful man next to him managed to take his broken heart and shape it into a home.


	8. Chapter 8

**Song for this chapter and the story in general: Sleepwalking - This Wild Life. It's perfect.**

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When Edward opens his eyes, he thinks he's still dreaming. Garrett's body against his own feels and looks too good to be true. What seems like miles of warm golden skin, peppered with freckles across his shoulders and spine. His body is a galaxy millions of light years from Edward's own – so beautiful it's unworldly, all cut muscle and hints of softness in all the best places. The dark swathes of ink etched into his skin curve and arch over his rib cage, around the hard ridge of a bicep, right over where his heart beats. Edward lays his head on that patch of skin, feels the rhythm of Garrett's life against his skull.

It's the sweetest sound he's ever heard.

He presses a kiss to Garrett's chest, right by that wounded heart. His lips chart the constellation of cinnamon dots across the beautiful body before him. There are little divots in places, puckered and pink.

War wounds.

They're all over Garrett's body. All over his mind, too. Edward can't reach those, but he kisses what he can. The wiry hair on Garrett's chest tickles his lips, the thicker line narrowing down the man's stomach catching in his stubble. He reaches the waistband of pajama bottoms, swallowing when he sees how Garrett's broad body stretches the cotton. His teeth bite softly into hipbones, his tongue peeking out to soothe the sting.

He wants to run that lick down further.

He rests his forehead against the soft flesh of Garrett's stomach, feeling the hard muscle underneath. Cushioned steel, still sharp enough to cut him. He's known men like that before. He's still got the pain to prove it.

But Garrett's covered in cuts too. He's lived through pain Edward can't even imagine, and he's still here, still trusting.

So Edward lifts his shaking hands to peel the pajama pants down slightly, just enough to see the hair on Garrett's stomach spread out. And right when he falters, Garrett's big hand is pressing down gently on his head, thumb coming out to stroke a line of fire across Edward's scalp.

When he looks up, he sees teeth pressing into lips. Turning the pink to white, like a million scars all fading.

"Don't stop," Garrett begs, voice gruff. "Please don't stop."

Edward pulls the cotton down further – just enough to expose the parts he needs to see. Somehow he knows Garrett needs that barrier still, and the slight clench of a fist in his hair confirms it.

He kisses Garrett's thigh once, softly, sweetly. "You're beautiful," he says.

Then he proves it.

He loves Garrett with his hands, with his mouth. Edward feasts on the man before him. He lets his tongue find the slit at the top of Garrett's cock, loving the bitter salt taste that greets him. He goes gently at first, trying to let Garrett adjust to the feel of him there. The hand he uses to roll Garrett's balls in his palm tugs lightly, his lips loose as he takes Garrett inside his mouth.

Garrett's already shifting his body restlessly, tilting his hips to push his dick further inside Edward's mouth. He's grunting and making whiny little noises in the back of throat, trying to stop the word he's desperate to say.

"Gonna suck you now," Edward teases.

"Please!"

"Only if you say it."

Garrett tosses his head on the pillow, turning his face away. Edward takes his mouth away, removes his hand. He shifts his body to cover the bigger man's.

"Say it."

The kiss he gives Garrett's neck is so deep, he can almost taste the blood under the skin.

"Please," Garrett begs again.

"Trust me enough to say it, Garrett," he whispers back.

Garrett's eyes are back on him, so dark they look like the heart of a bruise.

"Let go," Edward asks, then snakes one hand between them to wrap around Garrett's cock.

He tightens his grip when he feels the resulting whimper vibrate against his jaw.

"I want you to be mine, Garrett." He adjusts his body so he's kneeling. Kissing. Worshiping. His hand moves over Garrett quickly, thumb brushing over the head on every pass. "My boy." His tongue licks a long, wet stripe along the length of Garrett's cock, and then he hears it finally.

Whisper-soft, nothing more than an exhale, but still full of need. "_Daddy._"

He hums his appreciation once his mouth is wrapped tight against Garrett, sucking him down deep. That first night watching Garrett suck his thumb is still imprinted on his brain and he tries to replicate it, swirling his tongue and letting the flat of it roll against the head.

More of the bitter salt of Garrett's pre-come rushes out and he moves down his head down, past Garrett's balls. His hand moves fast, his fingers wrapped tight, his tongue licking hot, hard flicks across secret places. Garrett's hips thrust in ways that make Edward's mouth water. When Edward brings his other hand forward to tease the line between Garrett's ass, the man arches so hard his back leaves the bed.

"Oh, oh, _fuck_," Garrett cries.

Edward feels the thighs beneath him tremble, the balls next to his hand draw up tight. He moves up the bed, hand still jerking Garrett's cock, planting his mouth on the beautiful man falling to pieces before him.

Garrett grunts into the kiss.

"That's it," Edward says desperately. "Can't fucking wait for my boy come all over my hand."

A sharp inhale, a curse, and then Garrett bites down on his lip.

"Daddy!"

It should be filthy and sordid; it's not. It's Garrett and it's so _fucking_ good.

Edward kisses Garrett's flushed face more times than he can count, tasting his skin.

Nothing tastes better than the echo of Garrett's cry on his tongue.

Edward wipes his hand on his pajama bottoms before wrapping his arms around the spent man next to him. Garrett curls his body up tight into Edward, burying his head in the space between their bodies.

"Thank you," Garrett says softly.

Edward's drowsy from lack of sleep, but something inside him feels like it's broken loose and pushed through a divide.

He's vividly, painfully, blissfully awake.

Finally.


	9. Chapter 9

The room is warm, bathed in golden sunlight and an even more golden afterglow. Garrett breathes into the hollow between their bodies, making Edward shiver.

"Edward?" Garrett's voice is small. Shy, again. "I want you to see me."

Edward turns his head, eyeing the other man, but Garrett's already shaking his own head. "No," he says quietly. "My leg. I want to show you. Would that—you wouldn't mind?"

"Of course not," Edward replies, equally hushed. He runs the backs of his knuckles down Garrett's cheek. "I'd feel honored if you shared that with me."

Garrett snorts, the sound harsh and sarcastic. "Wait until you see it."

Edward sits up. "Nothing would change my opinion of you. Especially not that. I thought we were past this."

"You haven't seen it yet."

That 'yet' feels ominous, heavy, and it makes Edward realize Garrett's been waiting for this moment. Waiting to be rejected.

The thought makes his chest hurt.

"Show me?" he asks, because he won't demand it. Not this.

Garrett uses his arms to shift his body to the edge of the bed, and it strikes Edward just how different everything must be without the use of one leg. He's ashamed that he hadn't considered it before, beyond the basics of things like walking.

"I was trapped under the door of a vehicle that got blown up by an IED," Garrett says matter of factly, as though he hasn't just dropped a huge bomb of his own.

"Jesus _fuck, _Garrett."

"I was lucky not to lose both my legs. As it was, the doctors working on me were determined. My right leg was crushed but they rebuilt it and used pins to hold it together. The left… it was speared by a piece of bent steel from the doorframe. There was nothing they could do."

Edward swallows down the acid rising up his throat. "They couldn't use pins on that one too?"

"The bone had completely shattered, pierced through the muscle and tendons. Even if they'd miraculously saved it, I'd never have walked properly again."

"Baby," Edward says, his palm resting on Garrett's back. God, so much pain he can't even imagine, and the physical was the least of it.

"But I'm alive." Garrett looks back over his shoulder at Edward. "When I woke up, screaming about the pain in a leg I didn't even have anymore, that's what the nurse kept telling me. '_You're alive, Garrett, you're alive'._ It seems stupid now, but then… it was everything. I was alive and breathing, and so many of my friends weren't. I didn't have my leg, but I had that. Even when I didn't want to be, I was still alive."

Edward's hand spasms, reflexively trying to cling tight.

"I'm happy about it now," Garrett says softly, leaning back into Edward's touch. "But for a while…"

Mercifully, he stops there. Edward doesn't think he can take hearing the words. "Will you show me now?"

Garrett fumbles with the waistband of the borrowed pajama bottoms, pulling them down his thighs. He pauses just before he reveals what's underneath, back hunching like he's trying to protect himself.

"It's not pretty, Edward."

"Okay," Edward replies. Then he shifts on the bed, curves his body over Garrett's. Edward kisses the back of his neck. "But you should know, I could never look at you and find you anything less than beautiful."

Garrett breathes shakily before he pushes the pants down completely, leaving himself in just boxer briefs. Edward takes in the strong thighs before him, sensing again the strength of Garrett's body. Both look sturdy, muscled, one leading down to an equally built calf, one rounding out into a shiny, pink stump.

The scars surrounding it are wicked, still livid in color and shape, but they aren't repulsive. The bones of Garrett's knee are gnarled slightly, like a twisted tree. Edward looks at it all through watery eyes, imagining how hard it was for Garrett to see after he woke up in the hospital. It's awful, but only because Edward knows the pain it brought Garrett. It isn't ugly – it's just flesh, just skin.

"It doesn't change anything for me. I knew it wouldn't," Edward whispers, kissing the side of Garrett's cheek.

Garret shakes his head. "I know that it's not… attractive. I know it makes people feel awkward."

That painfully self-conscious look is back on Garrett's face, and Edward's heart aches. "You lost your leg fighting in a war, Garrett. People don't get to feel awkward about that. They don't have a right."

By the end of the sentence, Garrett's eyes are red-rimmed and shining. "They stare when I use the crutches, but not at my leg. They never look at my leg, just at my face with this pitiful expression, like they're sorry for me. When I wear the prosthetic it's better, because then they can't see that I'm broken or anything's missing. So I have to hide. I have to pretend I still have a leg just to fit in. And it's pretty fucking hard to accept yourself when you know no one else will accept you. I gave so much for this country, those people, and none of them see it. I gave more than my pound of flesh. But they just see what's missing. It reminds me what's missing, too. It makes me so ashamed," he whispers.

"Don't let it," Edward whispers back. "Don't let _them. _You're so much more than that, Garrett."

"You make it easier. I never felt like you were judging me after that first night. I feel… I feel like you don't see what's missing. You only see what's here. You only see me, and you like me."

"I really, really like you."

"Edward. _God_, Edward," Garrett leans back into him and Edward wraps him up in his arms. "Daddy," Garrett whispers on a sigh, an exhale so deep it sounds like he's been holding his breath for months.

"I've got you, Garrett. I accept you, just as you are." Edward squeezes him tight. "And just for the record," Edward kisses his cheek again. "I still think you're beautiful."


	10. Chapter 10

It feels wrong for Edward to call what's happening between him and Garrett 'dating', but it's the only word he has. Their dates are sometimes awkward, two men fumbling to make each other happy, and yet that makes them all the more sweet. They walk through parks and streets and life stories, hands entwined. On the days Garrett uses his crutches, Edward slides his finger into a belt loop.

When eyes linger a little too long on Garrett's baggy jeans, Edward stares back until the other person is itching to crawl out of their own skin – and he knows it's still only a tenth of what Garrett must feel every day. When a hostess ignorantly tells them they don't have handicapped tables, they find another restaurant. When some teenage boys jeer and call them names, Edward just holds Garrett's hand tighter, stands closer.

He's still trying to find his way, but for Garrett, he'll always forge ahead. He'll take Garrett's shame and turn it into his own pride. Garrett struggles some days, when the reset bones of his shoulder are aching and he can't quite grip his crutches right; when the demons inside his head are too loud to shut out. On those days, Edward makes sure his own voice talks loudest. On those days, Edward wraps Garrett's arm around his shoulder and holds him up.

On those days, he gives Garrett a little piece of freedom back. Like puzzle pieces, like a patch from a quilt – small, just one aspect of something much bigger. It'll take time for those pieces to come together, to stitch and heal broken places, but eventually it'll work.

Each date ends with a kiss or three, long minutes of holding one another. Their relationship hasn't progressed further than Edward loving Garrett with his mouth that first morning, hasn't come close again even. Each moment of affection between them is freely given but feels somehow stolen; stolen from the universe, as if they're both undeserving.

Edward wonders if some nights, his kisses taste like fear.

Because everything's so precious, so beautiful, he's terrified of it going away. There's a feeling he can't quite shake. His life is like the hours before a storm. Everything's so still, so quiet, but there's an underlying tension.

A twisted anticipation.

And then everything implodes.

He tells himself that he's imagining it. He tells himself that he and Garrett are stable and solid, but it's hard to believe when for years, he's been living on quicksand.

Edward is happier than he can ever remember being before.

Somewhere in the deepest, darkest part of himself, the part that keeps him awake long into the night, he senses that means it's only a matter of time before everything comes crashing down around him.

He just doesn't expect it to happen so soon.


	11. Chapter 11

"_Edward? I'm standing outside the park, but you're not here… Did you forget about our plans for today? We were meant to—well, that's not important. I just… call me, okay?"_

Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Another mistake made, another person let down. Edward covers his ears with his hands, elbows touching the knees pushed against his chest. The floor is rough underneath his bowed head, but he can't feel it.

He can't feel anything.

Nothing but blinding pain, a solar flare of it right inside his chest burning up the hope hiding there.

He pushes his forehead deeper into the carpet, like he can grind his brain right down to dust. Maybe then he can stop thinking, stop feeling, stop hurting. It hurts so much everywhere. All over.

And he knows he should answer Garrett's calls, but he doesn't know what to say. _Help, I think I'm breaking apart. Help, my heart is combusting inside my chest. Help, I'm about to spiral right off the edge._

_Help._

_Help._

He lifts his face away from the tear-soaked patch it's resting on, scrambling with shaking hands to find his phone. The moisture in his eyes makes it hard to see the contact list, but Garrett's name is right there like a beacon in an endless dark night.

One ring, two. Then a lifeline.

"Hello?"

"I need you. Please."

It takes five minutes for Garrett to get to his house. Edward opens the front door and all but falls into his arms, babbling about being sorry while crying because everything's still hurting and he's been waiting his whole life for it to stop. Garrett leads him through to the bathroom, fresh tears making tracks on the cheeks Garrett wipes with a damp cloth. He gulps for breath but it's like his lungs are taking in water and he chokes on it. Garrett's hands are so gentle as they cup his face and that hurts too, because what will be left when he leaves? At least before, Edward didn't know what happiness felt like, how words of love tasted on his tongue.

"Edward, what the fuck is going on? You're breaking my heart here."

_Mine's broken too,_ he wants to say, _broken and dead and gone, drifted away on a breeze years ago._

But that's not true. He knows it isn't, because if it was broken, there wouldn't be agony radiating from the aching, bruised, ever-sore lump of his heart.

If it wasn't there, he wouldn't feel his pulse race every time he thinks of Garrett. He wouldn't feel that little skip in his chest, the hitch in his breath.

And he's ruining it. He's so scared Garrett will leave and yet here he is, trying so hard to be more than needy fingers clutching too hard that he's pushing him away.

"Sorry," he says, but that water's in his throat and his words are garbled. "Sorry, sorry, I'm so sorry."

He pitches forward from his place on the edge of the tub, arms coming around Garrett's thighs in desperation. Garrett cups the back of his head, shushing him as he strokes his hair. Edward nestles into the soft jersey of the man's t-shirt, breathes in cologne and the scent of Garrett's skin. It soothes, settles. Everything's moving too fast but Garrett's here, holding him, and it's grounding.

Safe.

So when Garrett tells him to breathe in, he listens. This time it's all air and he sucks it in, swallows it down.

"Keep breathing, okay?"

He does. Until his chest aches in a way different than before and his eyes stop stinging, he breathes. In the silence of the bathroom, it sounds loud and raspy. His face and neck are hot with embarrassment, but he knows he needs to explain. He always knew he'd have to, deep down, though he'd hoped it would happen much later.

He didn't know fate would force his hand.

He clears his throat and turns his face up to look at Garrett.

"Today," he says, ignoring how his voice cracks. "Today, I saw my sister."


	12. Chapter 12

**This chapter completely ran away from me and ended up being triple the length I expected. I won't be posting for another couple of days after this, so hopefully I can make time to reply to all your sweet reviews. Thanks for reading, as always. xo**

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_Eleven years earlier_

Edward held the pillow tighter over his head, desperate to block out the too-familiar sounds of his parents arguing. It was about Alice.

It always seemed to be about Alice.

She was his older sister, but he couldn't remember a time she'd acted like it. She wasn't like any older sister he knew. She didn't have bad days – she had days when her head was her own personal prison, and then she had days even worse than those.

She claimed to see visions of the future.

When she was a little girl and her classmates were dreaming of their wedding and a magical prince, she was dreaming of death and pain and blood.

Gruesome, awful deaths, too terrible for her small mind to possibly imagine.

Rivers of blood.

No psychiatrist could ever figure out what was wrong. They put it down to an overactive imagination, and so Alice's parents had stopped her watching television or reading books that weren't filled with pictures.

Then they had Edward, to patch over the broken hole caused by having a damaged child.

Alice had always hated him. Her nightmares twisted, turned even nastier.

And in them all, Edward was the perpetrator.

It didn't matter that he was a small child, that he couldn't commit any of the terrible sins playing on a loop on the backs of her eyelids. She swore he was cursed and evil, and she refused to interact with him other than in spiteful whispers and hateful glares.

His parents never stopped trying to figure out what was wrong with Alice, searching for answers that weren't there. Each time they failed, they turned that anger on one another and screamed their pain away. Each time, Alice would stand in his open bedroom door and tell him the wickedness inside him was causing it all.

When he'd realized at fourteen that it was boys who made his pulse quicken and his body shiver, he tried to fight it.

He told himself he wouldn't be… _that._ He worked hard to be the perfect child, convinced that each new achievement would bring him praise or affection or even just acknowledgement from his parents.

It never did.

All it brought was more emptiness until that void inside him was like a black hole, threatening to swallow everything whole.

He forced himself to look at girls. But where he saw smooth skin, he craved the pinch of stubble; where he saw feminine softness, he craved hard edges. Each failure felt like another bruising blow.

All he knew of men liking men was what he'd seen in the newspaper after Freddie Mercury had died a few years ago. There were words like _sodomy_ and _AIDS_ and _incurable_, and he didn't know what any of it really meant. He just knew that finding men attractive was somehow tied to those things, and he was terrified of it.

Alice had been right all along. He was evil, and being gay was his punishment.

Life felt hopeless after that. His perfect grades slipped and he didn't try out for any of the sports teams that year, because there didn't seem a point to fighting a fate like his.

When Alice got a boyfriend just after Edward turned sixteen, he guessed it was just another way to be taunted for what he didn't have. He'd already experienced it watching kids at school with their families, the desire for the same a physical ache inside him. He watched the sister who'd only ever shown him hate showing another boy kindness and adoration, and it hurt beyond anything he'd thought possible. Alice wasn't some sadistic, unfeeling monster.

She was capable of love. She just didn't love him.

Right from birth, she'd rejected him. He'd spent his whole life never being good enough. That wore him down, turned his insides to ribbons. He was so exhausted by it.

By life.

So when Alice's boyfriend, Jasper, came to his room one night, he didn't realize what was happening.

Instead he sat and watched Jasper walk up to him, watched Jasper's hand land on his thigh.

He knew he was gay but he knew he didn't want this. He didn't want Jasper touching him. He couldn't remember the last time anyone had voluntarily touched him though, and it left him dazed.

Too dazed to hear the words '_don't you tell anyone'_ pass through thin lips. Too dazed to scream.

God, he should have fucking screamed.

He watched that hand creep up his thigh, and he wanted to ask what Jasper was doing, but the words he was shouting didn't seem to make any sound. It was like he was watching someone else lying in their bed helpless and frozen, and he was shouting and shouting but he never made a single noise.

Alice made enough noise for them both.

She started yelling just as Jasper's hand reached the outer edge of Edward's boxers. Edward was shaking and sick and still wondering what was happening as Alice moved into the room and pushed his shoulder so hard he toppled off the bed.

"Evil, evil, _evil! _I knew you'd do this to me. I saw it happen. I saw you seducing him inside my head for months. I saw you watching him every time he came around, your wicked little eyes following him. He was _mine!_"

Edward couldn't speak because there was bile blocking his windpipe, but he didn't have any words to say anyway. He just stared as Alice's open palm swung toward him and then he felt the bite of her nails across his temple, his cheek, his jaw.

Jasper was trying to pull Alice away from him, though he couldn't silence her words. She looked possessed, flailing her arms and legs and spitting at him. Her legs connected with his stomach once or twice, though he was already winded.

Already breathless. He didn't think he'd ever breathe again.

His parents burst into the room seconds later, his father dragging Alice out.

"I'll _never_ forgive you, Edward!" she screamed, red-faced and panting.

Edward didn't realize until later that was the first time she'd ever said his name.

Jasper had left the house quickly after that. His parents had been busy trying to calm Alice, so he pulled himself up off the floor. He washed his own cuts. His trembling hands, sticky with antibacterial cream, struggled with band-aid wrappers that'd stop him feeling so torn open.

He used a whole packet of bandages before accepting they wouldn't fix whatever had broken apart inside him.

He ran the shower water as hot as it would go, but he still felt the hard grip of Jasper's hand on his leg, still felt the sting of betrayal on every inch of his skin. He remembered how his father looked at him as he walked in, disappointed and weary, and he wondered if he'd ever seen his father look at him before.

When he felt wetness on cheeks that were nowhere near water, he told himself it was just the shower spray. When his stomach convulsed and he was sick all over the stall, he told himself it was whatever he'd eaten for dinner that night burning a hole in his gut. When he scrubbed his skin red raw, trying to rub off that phantom touch, he told himself he was just making sure he was dry.

When he couldn't bear to lie back down in his bed, he rocked himself back and forth on the living room couch.

No one came to check on him. No one offered him comfort. They were too busy with Alice, just like they'd always been.

He spent the night curled into a ball, sobbing his heart out and biting his fist to keep his cries silent. And he vowed from then on, he'd never let anyone get too close to him. He knew what love did, how it broke you, and he didn't want any part in it ever again.

His parents told him the next day they thought it was best if he went to stay with his aunt until things had calmed down.

He never went back home.

His aunt Esme saved his life.

She accepted him with open arms, lavishing with things like interest and kindness, affection and care. They were so new, so unexpected, that he spent the first few months living on a knife's edge, trying to earn those feelings. He spoke to his parents when they infrequently called. He did the dishes, mowed the lawn, and made his bed every morning. He regained his perfect grades. But no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't break down those walls inside himself. There was something locked inside him still, harboring the secret of liking boys and never letting it see the light of day. The stories he'd read and heard of HIV and AIDS had convinced him being gay was a cancer, a terminal illness.

He shrugged it off each time his aunt asked why he didn't have a girlfriend. "_You're so handsome, dearheart," _she'd say, and he wanted to reply "_Only on the outside," _but he was too afraid of losing the only person who'd ever cared for him by showing her how ugly his insides were. Instead he pretended to be interested in school and scholarship potentials, working on making his life into something acceptable.

Acceptable to whom, he didn't know.

When he was eighteen, his world caved in on itself for the second time. His aunt had asked him about college over dinner one night and brought up how he'd meet girls there.

"I worry about you, Edward. It's not right for a sweet boy like you to be on his own," she said softly.

"It's okay. I'm not interested in girls, Aunt Esme. I've told you before."

Esme covered his hand with her own. "What if you met a boy?"

Everything inside him froze. "Why would I want to do that?"

"If you liked boys, it'd be nice for you to meet one." Her voice, so gentle, so calm, and it still made him want to come apart at the seams.

"I don't like boys," he meant to say, but the words tangled his tongue no matter how many times he tried to say them. Esme's voice was so open and her hand was so warm on his, and the truth poured out of his mouth. "I don't want to like boys."

Years of denial, years of hoping and praying he'd somehow be cured of an attraction he was sure was wrong, and there it was. Six words that felt like six tons being lifted off his chest, and for the first time in years he took a full breath.

His eyes were wet with tears and so were Esme's as she moved to hug him. "I know. But it's okay, baby. It's okay. I love you no matter what, Edward. Always."

She stroked his hair, shushed his cries. He was surrounded by her warmth and her comfort, and everything black and rotten inside him seemed to fall dead away. He couldn't remember ever feeling so safe.

So loved.

For an hour, they held one another, him sharing his fears with Esme and her explaining the truth behind each one until he wasn't scared anymore.

He couldn't remember another time in his life that he hadn't been scared.

A month after that, he started dating a boy called Emmett. Things between them were innocent, sweet – just what Edward needed. Emmett had joked that Edward got off on taking care of and babying him. Emmett meant it as a throwaway remark, but it sparked something inside Edward that he started to explore once he was old enough. He found an outlet for all that affection trapped inside him, making other men feel precious in a way no one had ever made him feel. There was something about their happiness that made him feel good, all the way down to his bones.

It was the exact opposite of the evil Alice had always claimed to see inside him, and he lived for it. He was still careful to keep himself at a distance though, still scared to ever let anyone get too close. He lived that way for years, loving but leaving, telling himself it was what was safe. Though he was in relationships, he was never fully _in_ them – just little pieces of himself, what he felt he could afford to give at that point in time. He lived his life like an outsider looking in, detached and unfeeling. Dislocated, like a fractured joint that'd never been set right again. He was beyond terrified to let himself _feel_.

Until he met Garrett.

The man had reminded Edward so much of himself, so vulnerable but so craving love, enough to risk rejection to get just a taste of it.

Edward wanted to give him more than a taste. He wanted to give Garrett the world. Garrett had snuck underneath his skin, warmed him from the inside out. Those walls Edward had fought to hold up were coming down brick by brick, that distance he'd always maintained being closed down inch by inch.

Edward loved it.

Garrett brought out every protective instinct Edward had. He'd never been a warrior like Garrett, but he knew he'd fight to the death to see Garrett happy. He wanted to love away every ounce of pain Garrett had ever felt, kiss his skin until it was free from scars, burrow inside his heart until it was whole. Everything inside him wanted to make Garrett his boy. Edward ached to care for him and to make Garrett feel protected and safe.

Mostly, he wanted to make Garrett happy. And he wanted to be happy, too.

He'd been within reaching distance, the tips of his fingers just brushing on the edge of it.

Then he'd seen Alice.

It hadn't been a big blowout, nothing like the last time he'd seen her. He'd been rushing down a block on his way to meet Garrett from work, eyes unfocused as he pushed through the crowd. All at once, he'd felt his heart sink like the concrete beneath his feet and his breath leave him. He'd looked around confused, and then he'd seen her properly. She looked… nothing like he remembered. Maybe it was how scared he'd been of her that had always made her seem so big, but now she looked small. Harmless. Her face had lost its manic edge, something smoother taking its place. For a second, those cold eyes that once drilled into him skated across his face. It felt like time stopped as she stared and he tensed, but then her head turned to the side and the iron grip his lungs were in loosened.

Maybe she saw him. Maybe she didn't. In any case, she didn't stop to really look at him. She didn't yell cruel words. She didn't do _anything_. People swarmed around him, pushing past, yet he felt rooted to the spot. All those years spent living in fear of her and what she claimed she saw – what she claimed she saw in him – and she just passed right by him.

He guessed that was the way with most monsters feared in childhood, losing their power to scare once their victims were grown.

Edward wasn't helpless anymore. He wasn't scared, either. He'd never be scared of Alice again. Of anything.

The tears that washed over him were ones of pure relief. He thought he'd moved past all this years ago, but first he'd needed to see Alice for what she really was – just a girl who was terrified of the things she saw and needed someone to blame. He'd been closest. And that didn't make it right and it definitely didn't make it okay, but it eased a burden of blame he'd carried with him for all those years.

He walked straight home with his head down, trying to hide his wet cheeks from everyone walking past. The world looked different, and he didn't know whether it was the tears or his freedom coloring everything anew.

Maybe it was that which broke the levy inside him. All he knew was suddenly he was outside his house, crying so hard he couldn't see the lock on his door to slot the key inside, choking on the heavy sense of loss permeating everything.

The more things grew brighter in the wake of him finally letting go of Alice's legacy, the sadder he felt. It was like all the years he'd been robbed of happiness had suddenly built into a ticking time bomb in his chest and it had exploded everywhere. He felt mangled and angry, because he'd lived almost thirty years full of shit because his parents hadn't got his sister enough help. Not being beholden to Alice's judgments on him was freeing – so freeing it clawed at him, ripped him to shreds. For so long, he'd been defined by what she'd said. He'd let her words slot into the spaces in his spine until they made up his backbone, so woven into his very fabric that without them, it seemed the threads keeping him together had all fallen out.

It was all so fucking _unfair._

So unfair it broke his heart and made him sick. So unfair, he wondered he'd ever move past it.

And then Garrett's voice, distorted by the robotic tint of the voicemail and still so beautiful.

So hesitant.

Edward didn't want life to be unfair anymore. He didn't want it to be hesitant.

He only wanted it to be beautiful.

Even though he felt rubbed raw, he picked up the phone and he called Garrett. He fell into arms he knew would hold him up until he could stand upright again. He gave Garrett the very worst of him, like cleaning out a wound so it could finally heal. He told Garrett everything, even the ugly parts.

Especially the ugly parts, and there were so goddamn many.

Garrett held him when he cried, and Edward wiped tears off Garrett's hurting face.

When he was through and all their secrets were laid bare, nothing but silence between them, he leaned close into Garrett and stared into those dark eyes. He'd thought once that they looked like bruises, but now they seemed more like onyx – precious and rare, glinting in the waning afternoon light.

"Thank you," Edward said, his tone gritty as he put all his gratitude into those small syllables. "I can't ever thank you enough, Garrett."

"You don't ever have to."

Edward smiled wide. "That's why I want to."

Garrett rolled his eyes and whispered "goof," and Edward kissed his mouth just to taste that teasing tone.

"I'm falling in love with you, Edward." Beautiful words, gentle tone, healing heart.

"I'll make sure the landing's soft, baby." Edward kissed him again. "Keep you safe, always."

"I trust you," Garrett whispered.

"Your trust is the best gift I've ever had."

"Yeah?" His boy, still so insecure. So shy.

"You're the best everything, Garrett. Just… the best. All round."

A smile, all pink lips and white teeth, and it made Edward's heart race. He knows it'll take time to forget today and that Garrett has demons of his own to conquer, but he also knows that they're fully together now.

No more hiding, no more heartache.

Just love.


	13. Chapter 13

**I'm so sorry that couple of days turned into so long. I started grad school classes this week, and this story deserves more than just stolen snatches of writing. We're winding toward the end, and posting will be everyday again from now until the last chapter. Thank you for sticking with me.**

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They don't talk much for the rest of the evening, instead letting their bodies say everything for them. Lips press against lips, legs tangle, arms embrace and cling. And it's so precious, what's between them, so rare. So strong, despite them both feeling like their insides are made of glass.

Even when he told himself he was over it, Edward's childhood was like a broken bone that refused to heal. Each rejection was another lash, another welt that bled for years and sullied everything else. Esme was the first person to love him. Her home was warm, and he didn't even know he'd been cold until he moved there. As he moved on to college, he found friends and some sense of acceptance. He knew he wasn't happy, but he thought maybe that was a hope too high to ever reach for. Maybe some people weren't meant to be happy, just content. In loving others – his aunt, and the men who kept his bed from feeling like an empty hole – he found that contentment.

People's acceptance of him was a balm that held back the tide of hurt always pushing at the backs of his knees, but Garrett's quiet, steady affection is the lifesaver that will pull him out of it all. After a lifetime of feeling like he didn't belong, he's finally found somewhere he does.

With Garrett.

Maybe it's too soon for him to use words like always, but he does know that he never wants to lose the light that's shining into his life and illuminating everything.

"What are you thinking about?" Garrett asks quietly, his head against Edward's chest, his face upturned.

Edward kisses him gently. "About you."

Garrett's smile is slow and bashful, spreading across his whole mouth. Edward wonders if he's the reason that smile doesn't stop halfway anymore. The dimple indenting Garrett's right cheek is deeper than the one in the left, and his freckles are darker across his jaw, and Edward is so helplessly in love. "You looked really happy," Garrett whispers, and Edward strokes his finger across those freckles.

"I'm always happy when I think about you."

Garrett's arm tightens around his stomach. "You are?"

"You make me happy, Garrett."

"Daddy." Garrett buries his face into Edward's neck, like he can burrow inside. Edward laughs, because it's silly this strong man can ever be shy, but Garrett's next words leave him breathless. "I never thought I'd be happy again, after I lost my leg. I thought I was going to be alone for the rest of my life, never knowing how it felt to be wanted or… or to be touched. But you want me, Edward. You really want _me._ Even knowing about everything, the IED and the nightmares, you're holding me like I'm worth something to you. To the world, even." He kisses Edward's pulse-point, his lips lingering like he wants to feel the heartbeat against his mouth. "You gave me my life back. You made it worth living again. I've seen how ugly the world can be, but you made it something beautiful. And I'm so, _so_ happy."

Edward has to pull away then, because he can't kiss Garrett when their bodies are folded into one like this. When their lips finally meet, it feels like just for a second, the whole world glows.


	14. Chapter 14

Later that night, they walk to the bedroom hand-in-hand. Edward wishes he could tie knots in the laces of their fingers to always bind them together. They kiss gently, and Edward helps Garrett with his nighttime routine. The scars are still there but somehow he doesn't see them, too busy caught up in helping Garrett get ready. When they walk back to the bedroom, Garrett leaning on him as he walks, Edward feels strong enough to hold up the world.

Garrett told Edward once that he sleeps with a light on to get help orient him after nightmares, and Edward slept with a light on that whole week so he could accustom himself to sleeping with it. When he stops short of turning the bedside lamp off, inside leaving it on low, the soft sigh Garrett gives makes his heart kick in his chest.

Their hands roam as they settle in, and before long they're skin-to-skin. Garrett twists himself up in the sheets of Edward's bed, needy whimpers escaping his throat. Edward's hand moves too softly, only gripping Garrett's cock lightly.

"More, more, _more,_" Garrett pleads, and Edward lives for this. The moments where his touch is the most important thing in the world, the only thing that exists.

Edward kisses Garrett's cheek, the rasp of stubble against his lips making his own erection impossibly harder. "Want you," he whispers.

"Want you too, please, please," Garrett whispers, voice cracking and turning into a whine. "Inside me, want you inside."

Everything inside Edward slows and then stops, and he pulls back to stare into Garrett's eyes. Green meets ink-black, both seeing so much more than just the face before them. They see years of pain, separate yet somehow shared, years of aching, yearning hearts. And they're both laid bare now, bodies wrapped together, naked in ways that have nothing to do with clothes.

He'd heard of seeing stars but when Garrett's lips touch his, he sees whole constellations. His hands roam and stroke down Garrett's body, fingers mapping muscle and bone. Edward covers him, surrounds him, Garrett's body caged within his as he kisses his way down to tensed cords of Garrett's neck.

"Top drawer," Edward says. He hears the sounds of Garrett fumbling with the nightstand and then nothing but silence. He looks up, but Garrett's eyes flit away as soon as theirs meet.

"Baby?"

"I probably can't do many positions," Garrett says quietly, eyebrows pulling together. "We might only be able to do it with you on top, or…" His teeth dig into his lip, hard enough to bleed. "I don't know if it'll be good for you like that. I don't think my thighs will hold if I try to kneel, even on the mattress, and—"

"I love you, Garrett."

Garrett doesn't speak. Instead his whole body gives one long, wracking shudder.

Edward uncurls Garrett's fingers from around the plastic bottle he's holding, grasping it and opening the lid. The click echoes around the room and Garrett shudders again.

When Edward's mouth moves over his cock, tongue curling around the head, Garrett whimpers again. Lower this time, but still full of need. When Edward swallows him down deep, Garrett cries out sharply. When Edward's fingers, slippery with lube, move down past Garrett's balls and into soft, secret skin, Garrett arches his back and begs for more.

This time, Edward gives him it.

He works his fingers in and out, stretching and prepping. All the while, he kisses and licks his way around Garrett. He tongues the sharp angle of a hipbone, the crease of a thigh, the thick ridge at the tip of Garrett's cock.

He adds another finger and curls it slightly, and Garrett groans so gritty and deep that this time, Edward's the one who shivers. He shifts so he can get a condom from the drawer. Garrett watches as Edward rolls it down his dick, hand fisting tight around the base.

"Can't wait to be inside you, baby," Edward tells him.

Garrett smiles.

It's so unexpected but so not, because his boy is endlessly fucking sweet. Edward smiles back before picking up the lube and warming some between his hands before slicking it across his cock. Then Garrett's legs are spreading wide, and Edward's between them and right _there_. He kisses Garrett again as he positions himself, tasting the gasp Garrett gives when he pushes forward. He thrusts forward gently a few times, situating himself, his heart beating out of his chest.

Garrett's hands are all over him, rough fingers but a trembling touch. Edward's inside the man he loves, and everything is beautiful.

Bliss.

He goes softly at first, cautious, though it's not long until Garrett's pushing back on to him. "That's it," Edward tells him. "My boy, so greedy for my cock."

"Just for you, Daddy."

"Good boy."

Garrett comes alive under the praise, those little whines that drive Edward crazy starting up again. Edward feels Garrett's hand snake between them, sneaking toward his cock.

"No, Garrett. Let me take care of you."

Garrett just nods, head pressing back into the pillow. Edward angles his hips until he hears Garrett moan, and then he snaps forward until he's rubbing over the spot with every thrust.

"Wanna fuck you through the mattress, baby."

He almost does just that. His pace is punishing but he's not, instead kissing Garrett everywhere he can reach. Edward wraps his hand around Garrett's cock when he feels his orgasm getting closer, Garrett's grunts pushing him almost over the edge.

"Come for me, sweetness. Come so Daddy can come inside you."

The groan that Garrett gives as the first ribbon of cum paints his chest sounds torn from deep inside him. Edward strokes faster until Garrett's chest is covered, and then he stares at the mess as he drives his cock deep inside.

"Love you, Daddy," Garrett whispers just before Edward comes, and it's all Edward can do to keep breathing.

He comes in endless pulses, floating so high he doesn't think he'll ever come back down. His hands stroke Garrett's face, but he's barely aware of it. He's spinning somewhere far away, caught up on the edge of oblivion. All he feels is sensation, all he knows is love, and he wonders if this is how a phoenix feels after its rebirth.

He manages to roll off Garrett long minutes later. "Fuck," he says, all deep, low growl, one arm thrown across his eyes as he hopelessly tries to catch his breath. Edward looks back at Garrett - beautiful, shining like the first break of sun over a horizon; unrestrained like the seconds when a smile becomes a laugh.

He stares for a few seconds, dazed by all the beauty before him. His eyes drop to take in the rest of Garrett's body, slumped and sated across rumpled sheets, and then they close. "_Fuck_," Edward says again, but this time it's gentle.

Garrett curls up on his side, his big body seeming so tiny as it burrows into Edward's. He kisses Edward's cheek, his lips lingering. His voice is shy, his words just a whisper. "Thank you for loving me."

Edward can't speak, but if he could he'd tell Garrett the same back. Because that's how he feels, all the way down to his bones.

Endlessly, infinitely grateful.


	15. Chapter 15

Garrett wakes slowly the next morning. He stretches, feeling stiffness and a soreness in secret, sordid places that makes him smile. His arm reaches over to the side of the bed, his cold hands seeking Edward's warm body. All he finds are rumpled sheets. It hurts to open his eyes wide and take in the brightness of the room, but he forces himself to stare right into the dawn that eclipses the morning sky.

When he was in the military hospital in Germany, flown over after the emergency amputation of his leg, he would wake before any of the other men. Throughout each night there were screams and sobs, a nightmare different to the ones that haunted his sleep but no less harrowing. Each cry would have him instantly alert and tense, trying to get to his feet to assess the danger.

Only to try to step off the bed and crumple to the floor. He wasn't a soldier anymore. He wasn't a warrior, wasn't anyone's protector. He'd never be that again.

He wasn't even sure he was alive. His heart was beating, but he'd lost more than just his leg when that bomb had hit. He'd lost his life as he knew it. He'd lost his chance at love and a family, at happiness. He'd sit on the cold tiled floor and stare at where his leg used to be. The darkness was his friend and his enemy, his savior and his crucifier, hiding the empty space where his limb should be. Silent and devastated, tears would roll down his face as he stared into the black before him, like if he willed it hard enough his leg would be back by the morning. Some nights, the cruelest nights that seemed endless, he'd feel a phantom itch or twinge, and he'd move to scratch it.

And his hand would meet dead air. That was the way of his life now – reaching for nothing, hands empty with nothing to cling on to but his broken dreams.

The nurses were too busy and too few, and so he'd try to get himself back up and into bed, knowing help probably wouldn't come anytime soon. Pain would scream through his body, every tendon tense and agonizingly tight as he clenched his fists around the edge of his bed. He could never manage to pull himself up, the injury too new for him to be adjusted to moving a body that didn't feel like his own. So he'd sit on the tiled floor, waiting for the next scream to come. Desolation invaded like an enemy, his insides an imploding supernova. In those moments, abandoned to the unending darkness, he wished the bomb had taken his life as well as his leg.

But the mornings, they belonged to him. He found coveted comfort in the routine of the morning dawn. Aching, broken and beyond weary, each splintering ray of the sun across the sky was a thread for him to hold on to. There was something bigger than him, bigger than the fucked up mess he was drowning in. It wasn't something those empty hands of his could pick up, but it was something he could tuck into the empty crevices of his broken heart.

Even when he got out of the hospital, the mornings were something he cherished. Each one was a reminder that he was alive. Some days that seemed like a mountain too high to climb, to live again. Others, the sunrise felt like the hope he needed to bind himself back together.

He watched it every day, regardless. With wet eyes or tired ones, with pain or with gratitude, he chased the burning dawn across the sky.

He does the same now. For long minutes, he barely even blinks, so caught up collecting those threads of hope that wind their way around his heart.

Edward opens the bedroom door just as the sun shifts to golden-orange. Garrett's eyes immediately flicker over to him. He's dressed as if he's just been outside, his cheeks flushed from the bite of the early breeze.

"I thought you'd still be asleep," he says softly.

"I like to watch the sunrise."

"I know. I watch you most mornings."

"You do?"

Edward's face is so, so soft, and Garrett never wants to forget how he looks right then, burnished by the fiery sunlight. "There's something special about your face when you watch it. It's like everything else just drops away, like nothing else matters."

"You matter, Edward."

Edward walks to the edge of the bed, one of his hands coming from behind his back to rest on Garrett's cheek. His palm is cold, but that's not what makes Garrett shiver. "I'll share you with the sunrise any day. It's worth it to see the peace it gives you, baby."

Garrett wants to tell him that he's a sunrise, too. That he puts a stop to the rushing sentences spinning through his head. That on the days where his leg really aches and he can barely pull himself out of bed, Edward's face brings him more hope than any light. But his words are stolen by Edward's kiss and so he tells him those things with his lips and tongue and teeth, pressing his sleep-hot face against Edward's cold one.

By the time the kiss is over, they're both warm.

"I got you something," Edward says, eyes sparkling, tone teasing.

Garrett tries to duck his head around the side of Edward's thigh, to see the elusive gift hiding in his hand.

"Say please, first."

Garrett pouts. He ignores Edward's snort and pushes his bottom lip out further. "Please."

"That's not how nice boys talk."

Garrett sucks his lips back into his mouth and wets them with his tongue. "Please, Daddy?"

Edward pulls the gift from behind his back and Garrett is lost somewhere in the sky, riding on the tip of the sun.

He has to swallow three times before he can speak, and even then his voice cracks. "You bought me flowers?"

"I want you to feel special, see how much you mean to me. They're just something dumb, but I hoped dragging my ass out of bed – and away from your very fine, very bare ass – would get me some brownie points. It's the thought that counts, right?"

Except Edward's wrong, because this counts. More than anything before, this _counts._

"The flowers aren't open yet, but I thought that was good," Edward continues, like he hasn't just shattered Garrett's world. "It means they'll last for longer."

He looks at the flowers, the tight buds keeping the petals wrapped up tight. And his throat is painfully tight, because he remembers that – keeping himself closed off, curled up. Being too afraid to venture out.

Then he found Edward, and suddenly life bloomed.

The cellophane wrapping crinkles as he gently takes the flowers from Edward's hand and lays them on the bed beside him. He'll take care of them later, but for now he needs to take care of something much more pressing.

He tugs on Edward's shirt until they're face-to-face.

"You bring me more peace than anything else ever could."

For a while, they just hold one another tightly, kissing each other softly. Each meeting of their lips is an oath, a promise, a pledge.

By the time Edward goes to get the bagels he brought home, the sky has dulled into pale blue.

Garrett realizes his never did finish watching that sunrise.

Staring at the smile spreading across Edward's face as he walks back in the room, he thinks maybe he's found something better to chase instead.

* * *

**Thank you for your sweet reviews, always. **


	16. Chapter 16

For their one year anniversary, they drive down to Crescent City. Their hotel room is covered in tacky seashells and haphazard stripes of blue, but they're too busy looking at one another to care. They spend hours with their bodies wrapped together stroking, kissing, making love. And make love they do – even when it's rough, even when Edward has Garrett face down and begging for him.

Deeper than the ocean outside their window, wider than any sea, it's love.

Even after they finally make it out of their hotel room, they continue to touch. Edward lets his cold hands touch the sun-warmed skin of Garrett's back when they walk. Since they moved in together, Garrett's been using his prosthesis less and less. The domed top rubs against his amputation point painfully, leaving the tender skin red-raw. It reminds him of those awful few months of learning to walk again, where the ragged flesh would bleed and bleed and he'd watch it trickle down into nothing. On those evenings, Edward helps him with the special lotion. He's achingly gentle, his fingers almost reverent.

Garrett knows that's because Edward gets it. Gets _him. _Knows how it feels to have tissue-paper skin, how each touch feels like it could tear you into pieces. So he moves slowly, stroking in the soothing cream, pressing a kiss to the start of the scars when he's finished. The first time Edward did it, Garrett tried to push him away, tears streaming down his cheeks.

"How can you kiss that?" he'd asked, so full of revulsion and shame, even after all that time. Even with Edward.

"You're alive," Edward had replied. Those words, spoken to him when he first woke up in the hospital by a nurse with a soft heart and sad eyes, hit him right in the ribcage.

Edward kissed further down, where the scars were deeper purple. Garrett couldn't feel the contact, not with the burns and the incisions and the dead tissue. As Edward kissed all around the sore skin, feather-light touches of his lips, no matter how impossible, he swore he felt everything.

So now he sticks mostly to the crutches, because the world accepting him doesn't seem so important now he knows Edward does. He even had new crutches made so he could walk fully upright. Spine straight, shoulders back, facing the world.

Not hiding, not anymore.

The men at the veteran's group he attends told him to wear his injury with the same pride he wore the uniform of his country, and he does.

Now when he wears his military t-shirt and someone asks where he served, it doesn't hurt. When they thank him for his service, his mouth doesn't fill with bitterness. Instead he nods and says it was his honor, and he honestly means it.

The shifting sand of the beach is tricky to navigate, but the feel of soft, warm grit squeezing between his toes makes him giggle like a child. He just leans further into Edward, ignoring any stares, and lets his man lead him to the beach. Garrett doesn't swim – he's not sure he can handle the lapping waves. Instead he watches Edward, shining as he floats around, golden skin and lean muscle and endless bright. He feels the warmth of the sun against his face, hears the soft cry of children further down the beach, and he feels blessed beyond measure.

Those blessings continue as Edward drags himself out of the water and runs over, shaking his wet hair all over Garrett and peppering him with cool water. They wrestle in the sand as Edward tries get him wet.

"You can't come to the beach and not get wet!"

Edward charges like a bull, planting his now-freezing head against Garrett's stomach. They laugh so hard and loud, the birds near them fly away. Afterwards, when they're both wrapped up tight in hoodies, they sit side-by-side and stare out onto the horizon. The tide lulls against the shore, the summer air so balmy it feels like a dream.

"The ocean's so big," Garrett says quietly.

Edward huffs a laugh.

"Shut up." Garrett reaches over and tickles the sensitive skin on the back of Edward's knee with his thumb. "I just mean… the ocean's endless, you know? The world is endless. It's full of places and people, some we'll never even see. But even though it's this huge place, somehow we found each other. I was so lost, but you found me."

Edward leans over to kiss his cheek his lips lingering so Garrett feels the next word he speaks embed itself in his skin. "Fate."

That one word sets Garrett's heart racing.

This close, Edward's eyes are sea-foam green, reflections of the water causing glittering flecks. Garrett reads them like tea leaves, seeing love and happiness, years of laughs and closeness.

He sees his future.

Maybe Edward was always destined for him, deeply woven into the book of his life. Maybe everything that came before was just the prequel. Maybe his life didn't really start until he met Edward.

Above all else, he knows that Edward is his beginning, his middle and his end.

"I know one thing for certain," Edward says, his face close, his words a whisper of hope drifting on the wind. "No matter how big the world is, no matter how many people there are, no one will ever love anyone the way I love you."

_Except me, _Garrett thinks, staring at the evening sky through the oceans blurring his eyes. _Except me, loving you._


	17. Chapter 17

They marry on the same day they met three years before. The day is clear and crisp, gentle breeze blowing as they walk up the steps to the courthouse, fingers entwined. Garrett feels a blanket of warmth at his back, but he can't tell if it's the weather or happiness causing it. He takes each incline of the stairs carefully, cautiously. Not because they're too steep for his leg to manage; just because he wants to savor every moment of this beautiful, impossible day.

He wants to take a million snapshots in his mind of Edward at his side in a navy suit, of the way his hair glints a hundred different colors, as if it's on fire. Of the way he keeps sneaking Garrett quick looks of _'oh fuck, are we really doing this?'_

Of the way he doesn't stop smiling, even for a second.

It feels surreal to stand in front of the justice of peace and take vows they've already taken a thousand times – every time Edward cradles Garrett's hand inside his own, every time they kiss. There's words spoken by billions of people in probably a million different ways, and yet the words take on a new meaning when Edward speaks them. They're slow and solemn, like he's rolling each word around his mouth and capturing its taste before he lets it out. He stares into Garrett's eyes the whole time, his stare making a vow of its own.

_I'll love you forever._

When Edward slides a band of brushed silver around the third finger of Garrett's left hand, he lays a kiss atop it immediately after. That band is a study in contrasts: heavy but small, closed-off but neverending, forged from fire but treated as if it was precious.

Garrett thinks maybe it's fitting that's the ring he'll wear for the rest of his life.

Edward cries when Garrett repeats the vows back to him. Not dramatic tears, not lurching sobs, just quiet, steady streams of wet that bracket the widest smile Garrett's ever seen him wear. Watching it turn into a laugh when Garrett adds the vow to obey into his vows feels like the first blossom of a spring after an endless winter.

That smile plants roots deep in Garrett's chest, the hope-laden soil of his heart causing it to bloom. The justice of peace is polite but perfunctory as she talks through the closing of the marriage ceremony. Their prompted kiss is nothing more than a meeting of their mouths, but every inch of Garrett's body is electrified by the simple contact.

And then they're married.

They walk back down the aisle, Edward leading Garrett because he's blinded by the sight of every dream he never knew he had.

Coming true, right now.

Edward and he had spoken at length about the name they'd take after the wedding. Garrett wasn't close to his parents, having moved out of their house at eighteen. They both knew they wanted to have to have the same one, they just weren't sure which.

Not until Esme.

Esme, who gave Edward his first chance at life. Esme, who gave Edward love when he hadn't ever known it. Esme, who gave Edward a home, a family, and her last name. Esme, who cried when Garrett visited her to ask if she'd extend that name to him too.

Esme, who Garrett is eternally indebted to, who would never see the gifts she bestows, just by being, as something to be repaid.

Esme, who gave them Rachel.

Their daughter.

They'd seen children as a maybe. Edward hadn't had a childhood he wished to remember, and Garrett worried how he'd care for a baby on his own when Edward was working. They felt both lucky and incredibly bitter that they were allowed by law to adopt a child – more than perhaps anyone else alive, they were two people with lion hearts full of love to give, and yet they needed a special mandate to find a child of their own.

In the end, fate intervened in its own chaotic, wonderful way.

It began with Esme making a plea to Garrett to talk to a seven-year-old girl she'd been allocated as a case worker for. Garrett felt awkward and unsure, wondering why Esme would want him of all people to speak to a child no one else had been able to get through to.

Until he saw her.

Hair as black as night, eyes as blue as a wave. Chubby, dimpled cheeks, wild curls and a buttercup-yellow outfit.

And empty space where her right arm should be.

All at one, Garrett felt choked. By the injustice, by sorrow, by memories. He knew why Esme had called him, knew why she'd hoped he could be a last chance to connect. He didn't know much about children, but he knew everything there was to know about hope.

So he swallowed all the bad down and moved forward slowly, coming to sit beside the sweetest, saddest little girl he'd ever seen.

She ignored him at first, the only sign she'd noticed him present in the tightening of her arm around the ragged bear she cuddled. They sat in silence for a few minutes, her gaze never moving from the floor. Garrett didn't know whether to try to greet her or try to strike up a conversation. He shifted uncomfortably on the too-small child's beanbag, almost toppling off and having to flail his arms to stay upright.

Then it was like the heavens cracked wide open and a beaming light struck the ground right next to him.

A giggle. Quiet. Hesitant. Small, but there.

Just a second of sound, and yet one that sparked a fierce yearning inside him.

He looked down to see shy blue eyes peeking at him, snapping back away when she saw him staring at her.

"Well that was a way to introduce myself, wasn't it?" he said softly, trying to make himself less intimidating. "I thought maybe I'd tell you about my meetings with Santa instead, but I guess that's gone now."

Those eyes, flitting but curious, they ignited the hope that had never steered him wrong.

"And all the elves I met, too. They were busy making the toys, but they had time to make me some reindeer cookies," he said, and oh _God_, _did he just tell a child elves murdered reindeer? _"Not out of real reindeer, of course. They're too fast for the elves to catch. And the elves are too nice to want to ever make them into cookies. No, they use gingerbread instead, and candy for the eyes and noses."

Another giggle. He'd make a fool of himself a million times over to hear that noise.

"Or I could have told you about getting caught under the mistletoe with Mrs. Claus. Now that was _way _more awkward than almost falling off the beanbag."

"You're silly," he heard, and his heart broke. Her voice was scratchy from disuse, her words hushed and lurching, awkwardly paced. Still, they came from her, and that might have made them the most beautiful two words Garrett's ever heard.

"What's silly is how small these beanbags are." He rolled forward dramatically, letting his hips teeter on the edge.

"You're just big," she said back quietly.

"I know. I've always been too big, much bigger than everyone in my class at school. It made me upset when I was young."

Rachel's eyes were solemn and beyond her years when they stared into his. "Big is good. If you're big, people can't hurt you."

Garrett had to bite the inside of his cheek to ground himself and the tears pushing at the backs of his eyes. The girl's words still had that strange, slightly garbled tone, but Garrett would recognize fear even if it was in a foreign tongue.

"You can stop other people from getting hurt, too," he replied, just as quietly. The next words are ones that once would have made his throat close up, but now he speaks them proudly. "That was my job for a long time. I was a soldier, in a faraway country called Afghanistan. I helped protect whole villages of people, while protecting people here at home too."

Rachel shifted an inch closer toward him. "One time at school, we wrote letters to soldiers. And my teacher sent them cookies."

"Yeah? That was really kind of you all. I know when I was there, little things like that reminded me of why I was there. Why I was looking after people."

"Are you gonna go back?" She shook her curls away from her face, clutched impossibly tighter to her bear. "I could tell my teacher and we could send cookies."

More than any medal he won, more than any battlefield honor he received, this humbled him. He cleared his throat. "I'd love that, but I won't be going back. I can't be a soldier using these."

He prodded his crutches and saw her eyebrows furrow in confusion. She stared from them to him and back again.

"Last time I was there, I got hurt." He took a deep breath, praying he wasn't making a huge mistake. "The doctor's fixed me, but I still lost part of my leg."

Her head dropped down so she could look at his jeans, shooting back up when she saw the baggy fall past what's left of his calf. "Oh," she breathed. "Oh, you have an owwie like mine!"

She sounded almost excited at first, like she'd never met anyone else missing a limb before. Then her eyes filled with big tears that spilled over quickly, rolling down her rounded cheeks. Her lip trembled. She moved closer to Garrett, one tiny hand unclasping from around her bear and slipping into his. "Did it hurt really really bad?"

"Don't cry," Garrett whispered, feeling on the verge of tears himself. "It doesn't hurt anymore."

"I'm sad for you," Rachel told him. "Do people call you names?"

God, his heart was in pieces. "If they do, then I don't let myself hear them. Do people call you names?"

She stared at him, face sadder than he could bear, before she nodded slowly.

"I'll tell Esme and we can stop that happening, okay? That's not right, Rachel. That doesn't have to happen. It _shouldn't _happen."

He knew rationally that he shouldn't be making promises to her, yet this was one he knew he'd keep. There was no other option.

She clambered into his lap and wrapped her arm around his neck, clinging on like he was the only thing she had in the world except that torn old bear. He thought maybe he was, and so he cocooned her shaking, tiny body within his strong arms and hugged her back.

Even then, he knew he wanted to call her his daughter. He found out from Esme that Rachel had suffered from meningitis as a child, causing the loss of her arm and hearing damage that accounted for her speech issues. Her parents hadn't been able to cope with the demands of a growing child with disabilities, instead singing away their rights and making her a ward of the state.

Edward was disgusted any parent could do that to their child, but Garrett saw it differently. Rachel's parents knew they couldn't care for her and loved her enough to give her away to a family who could.

More than anything else in the world, Garrett wanted him and Edward to be that family.

Adoption was a hard, lengthy process that involved paperwork, probing questions and more than a few tears. It also involved Rachel and how her smile got a little bigger every day, or the way she asked Edward to read to her and then whisper the words back to herself so she could learn to say them the right way, and any amount of stress paled in comparison.

Finally, they stood in a courthouse and received the best gift they could ever be given – their daughter. She'd sat patiently throughout the proceeding, then when Esme had explained the judge had made Edward and Garrett her parents, "forever and ever", she'd run down from her seat and smacked into the sides of both Edward and Garrett's legs. She was crying, they were crying, and all around them was luminous, unimaginable happiness.

When they make it to the end of the aisle, their little girl is there, squealing and throwing flower petals she was meant to have sprinkled around on her trip up.

"Papa, we're a real family now?" she says, clutching onto Garrett's pant leg.

He bends down to pick her up, cradling her between himself and Edward. They both hold onto her, kissing her cheeks and making her giggle.

"We're a real family, honey."

She squeals again, throwing her weight against Edward's chest. He laughs and walks over to a beaming, teary-eyed Esme, but not before he throws a "Come on, loverboy!" over his shoulder.

Garrett watches his family walk out into the brightly-lit foyer, watching the glow around them, seeing none of the shadow.

Three years ago, his life was pinned to a butterfly's wings, praying for the barest hint of something to pull him through the day.

Three years ago, he was drowning in a sea with a tide that he fought against just to breathe.

Three years ago, he lived in darkness, trying to find a light.

And now, he has a husband, a mother, a daughter.

A sky so bright, he can't count all the lights within it.

A sky, studded with bursting, love-shaped light.

A sky, full of stars.

* * *

**This story turned out to be so much more than I expected, as have the sweet reviews and comments I've received on it. Thank you. Whether you read or left love or pimped the story, I'm so grateful. Until next time, xoxo**


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